Like the gentleman he is, Dominus Karl bowed to his audience. As he was about to perform.

"The spar was beautiful dear, I quite liked how much your fat can jiggle up and down, you're also quite the cutie you know?"

As they were rigidly coming down the stage, both Alex and Alais got a little closer, as Alais caressed Alex's cheek.

The atmosphere was as awkward and alien as it would get, yet nobody stepped in to assess the situation or ask them if they were fine.

In such a situation, Alex would have normally blushed at such a compliment, even more, when given by such a stunning girl. Alais has long blond, silky hair that cascaded down her shoulders, long pointed ears, and beautiful, soft facial features. Just by looking at her, one could have imagined that amongst the Elves she must have been of noble lineage.

"You're so sweet. Maybe we should meet up tonight, what do you say we meet up at the red district. The 'forbidden dreams' they called it, we could also a 'dedalo' for some unbridled fun."

It simply didn't make sense, he had never even heard of the existence of such a place, nor did Alex know what a dedalo was. He would also never invite a girl out for a date. He had always been insecure about his looks and knew the chances of being rejected were that much higher.

Fortunately, his father was a wealthy man, and money was not a problem, so much it made up for his looks.

Alais bizarrely winked back at him, giving him thumbs up on the matter.

The two came to a halt, and another voice joined the fray.

"Very well! Come, hug me, and celebrate with me your wonderful duel!

Sniff, they grow up so fast."

The bloodied, armored Knight that was Cole had just come up to them to congratulate them. Small tears leaked down from his eyes. A sense of joy he shouldn't have any reason for, suddenly invaded his mind.

The three of them then stiffly hopped down the arena and formed an orderly line.

Mr.Domino bowed once again while taking off his black half-top hat as sign of respect.

"This is art! Bravo, bravo!"

Soon after the trio started fervently applauding the 'performance', then followed up by the rest of the dumbstruck trainees.

"You don't get it right Cole? You see, Alex here, he's ours. As incapable as he might be, it's our stuff you're touching.

He won't come with you when the time's right, he'll remain up here to train under us. I'd be sure to send him your way for the military campaign, though.

Now I'll be taking my leave, I must prepare for the important appointment I told you about. Stay well my sweet canaries."

Saying so, Dominus Karl turned around, directed back inside the Academy.

"Yes Bishop, I'm coming."

Soon after Alex's emotionless voice followed suit.

With Mr.Domino gone, everyone regained their free will. Alais straight up collapsed on the ground, while Captain Cole was heavily breathing.

'It had been a while since I'd gotten into such a scary encounter. What a crazy man he is, both a Bishop of the animus Church and the 79th Lord of the council.

I had yet to receive a good scare like this in years. After all old monsters like him are in the minority.'

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

The scary encounter must have left the cadets in a state of shock, even if Mr.Domino made his best not to leak his aura and injure all the presents. The psychological damage wasn't negligible.

"Get up everyone, start running around the grounds, if I see you slacking I'll come up and whip you myself!"

Seeing the Captain speaking as his normal self gave everyone a sense of security and normalcy, as they quickly obeyed.

Only Cohnal remained behind, as he was repeatedly slapping Alais cheeks in an attempt to wake her up. That was, in fact, the only method he knew of.

"Cohnal, stop it, let her be and join the others, also tell them I'm going to pick up the heavy backpacks you used last time."

Marching for extended periods was a fundamental skill that every soldier needed in their arsenal. The army needed to move quickly to respond to any threat and only officers were gifted their personal steed.

Thinking so, Cole gave a quick glance at Nestor, who was still quite meditating. Only this time he observed an anomaly.

All around him flowers sprouted from the ground, red poppies with long stems, and delicate petals appeared near his figure, perfectly matching his red hair.

'How peculiar this is, the realm of the soul is such a complicated topic, hopefully, I chose to become a spirit caller that one time.'

As Cole thought about his past, time quickly passed by, and after a few hours Nestor woke up.

Now, everyone had long stopped their run and started practicing their martial manuals under Cole's strict gaze.

Nestor slowly got up and stretched his limbs, feeling physically tired but somewhat mentally refreshed. He caressed the few poppies that sprouted around him.

"How beautiful..."

Now, with a smile on his face, he was ready and eager to learn his very own manuals. After all, technique was the aspect he lacked the most.

"Hold on Nestor, your in for another fight. Get up on the arena."

Captain's stern expression crushed all his hopes, yet he knew there wasn't any way for him to avoid the duel. What was he to do? Throw a tantrum and cry like a kid? It wouldn't have helped anyway.

While making his way up the arena, Nestor felt someone lightly tap on his shoulders, it was Marco.

"Oh man, you can't even imagine you've just missed. Really, how could you even sleep during all that mayhem. You know, you just lost the most hilarious scene I've ever seen, both its director and the actors involved were great!"

Marco with a wide smile greeted Nestor, as he thought about how unlucky he had to be to lose out on such a scene. Meanwhile, Captain Cole slapped his forehead, incredulous at Marco's absurd behavior. How dense must he have been to believe Mr.Domino's insanity.

Seeing the proud knight slapping himself out of nowhere, made Marco ecstatic about the next skit they would present him.

Enough with the athlete's nonsense, now Karla and Nestor were back, up in the arena, facing each other in a duel.

Khopesh at hand, Nestor felt an even stronger connection whit it, as if their bond had deepened. He felt more confident in wielding it.

Karla on the other hand was wielding a long spiked whip, ready to strike at a given signal.

Karla initiated the fight by striking Nestor's right leg with her whip. The black thorns spread all over it made the hit much more painful, as they dug into its flesh, and when she made the motion to retract the whip, doubled the damage inflicted.

A gaping wound was instantly opened on Nestor's thigh, but he wasn't scared, sure it was painful, that much he knew, but the wound itself wasn't anything serious.

Maybe, being hit by the whip ten times over would have tired him out and bled him so much he wouldn't be able to fight back anymore. But he wasn't going to allow that.

He quickly took charge, managing to fend off a few hits thanks to his precognition, until he found himself right in front of his opponent.

Kerla was scared, she didn't like to fight. She didn't like both the stench of blood and the brutality of violence. Thus, when she had to choose a weapon for herself to use, she chose a whip, the liked the range, and being able to strike her opponent from a safe distance made her feel more comfortable. She also liked the weapon itself, it was the kind that inflicted great pain on the enemy, adding more of a psychological factor, rather than having the simple intent to kill.

A noble weapon, she considered it to be so. In particular, she liked this one whip her new grandpa bought for her. She called it the black rose, its color was jet black and had a multitude of thorns all over its body.

Her favorite feature about it, was that like a rose, coming in close contact with it, could have left you with an unpleasant surprise.

As Nestor was about to strike down with his khopesh, his arm suddenly come to an end, as something had gotten a hold of it. Karla's whip was now coiled all around it.

'How is it possible? I didn't even see it!'

That was, in fact, a special ability intrinsic to the whip. 'Constraint' as it had been called by its creator, allowed the wielder to imbue their consciousness into the artifact for a brief moment, acquiring momentarily control over the object. Of course to forge a weapon with such a skill, one needed to be something more than a skilled blacksmith.

A soul master of the aspect of union was very much needed to craft special artifacts and weapons.

The spiked whip coiled all around Nestor's arm, quickly deepening its hold, it kept moving and scraping it, as blood flowed and the pain intensified, Nestor couldn't care anymore about his opponent's safety.

He was about to strike, and that was now Cole's problem to deal with.